Break Free
by purplecat19
Summary: Aziraphale begins to fall. Crowley is there to catch him.


**I own nothing. Enjoy!**

* * *

There was a meteor streaking through the sky.

Down below, a child stood in front of a bookshop. She was not watching the meteor, like many others were at that moment. Instead, she was straining to keep sight of the dark speck that was chasing it to the ground.

The meteor was bright and colorful and beautiful, and somewhere in her soul the girl knew that it spelled tragedy.

ooooo

Aziraphale felt, strangely, like he was drowning.

He couldn't seem to take in any air, plummeting as he was to depths unknown. His very essence was suffocating, gasping for the familiar warmth of Above that he was so accustomed to, but finding it being torn further and further away with every passing second. His essence was growing colder, turning his insides to ice, even as his wings _burned_.

The flashes of light and fire were dizzying every time he managed to open his eyes. The flames kept changing color, swirling around him like hellfire, burning all the more at his freezing soul. It was as if someone had sent molten magma through his icy veins.

It wasn't pain. It was agony.

His mind had gone numb. He was no longer fighting what was happening, no longer trying to reorient himself skyward, no longer thinking about anything at all, really, other than waiting for it all to be over. It was the only thing worth believing in now, anyway.

It had to end eventually, didn't it?

He didn't know about the people on the ground, didn't know about the angels dusting their hands off and congratulating each other on a job well done, and he certainly didn't know about the demon who was, even now, trying to save him.

ooooo

Crowley was plummeting.

He'd been almost to the bookshop when he heard a child shout, "Look!" and followed her finger into the sky. Everything had frozen in that instant, the world crashing down around him as he understood, without a doubt, exactly what the child was really seeing. Exactly who she was really seeing.

He'd launched himself into the sky, not bothering with hiding himself, not bothering with wasting any time diverting anyone's attention, because if there was any chance at all he could stop _this_, he would do it. Someone help him, he would do it.

But Aziraphale was falling faster than he'd thought, and he'd ended up higher than him before even reaching him. So now here was, body pencil-straight, wings tucked against him, doing everything he could to reach the angel before there was no longer an angel to reach.

By all the laws of aerodynamics, Crowley should have been able to catch up to the tumbling angel in no time. But Falling was tricky that way. Ineffable, maybe.

He _was_ getting closer, though. He was imagining it with all his strength, and his imagination had not failed him yet.

Feathers alight with all shades of flame flew up past him, mocking him. Crowley wanted to collect every single one, to mend them and give them back to Aziraphale once they were safe. But he didn't have time. Feathers grew back. Angel grace didn't.

And so he continued to plunge downward, urging his body faster, urging gravity to pull more strongly on him and less so on Aziraphale, urging his tears away as he watched the mass of feathers and fire spin and tumble below him.

But he was closer now. He could feel the heat of the flames as they stretched up towards him. He could almost reach out and grab him…

One of Aziraphale's wings slammed into Crowley's path, knocking him away rather forcefully. Crowley managed, somehow, to hold back the instinct to spread his wings and slow his fall, and instead moved his wing only enough to correct course. The whole side of his body where Aziraphale's wing had hit him stung, and he forced away the thought that it had more to do with the fire burning through the angel than with the physical hit.

He was catching up again, slowly, slowly. Aziraphale's wing was right there, if he could just touch it…

The very edge of the angel's wing brushed against Crowley's hand, and he had to bite back a cry. There was a strange sort of heat to this colored hellfire, marking it as not the usual brand but something much more devastating, something that would tear at angel and demon essence alike. Crowley remembered his burned wings after his own Fall, and how long they had taken to heal. Normal hellfire he could withstand just fine, could even enjoy. This was something else entirely.

Crowley ignored the pain, trying not to think about the fact that it was only a fraction of what Aziraphale was feeling, and let his hand slide along the angel's wing to his shoulder. And finally, finally, he was able to grab Aziraphale's jacket, secure the angel in a hug, and open his wings.

Their drop slowed suddenly, but still they were falling, faster than they should have been. It was as if a magnet was pulling Aziraphale down, dragging Crowley with him. Crowley flapped his wings, rather uselessly, then changed his angle slightly and tried again. But the air didn't seem to want to cooperate. _We are moving upward,_ he imagined, harder even than he'd imagined the Bentley surviving its ride through hellfire. He poured all his desperation into the thought, made himself believe it was true. _I can lift you. I can save you._

The magnetic pressure on Aziraphale eased rather suddenly, catching Crowley by surprise and causing them to shoot upward. Crowley didn't have the presence of mind, right then, to consider why. Instead he only flew upward, higher and higher, anything to keep Aziraphale from Falling.

But then, had Crowley had the capacity to think through things logically, he would have noticed that Aziraphale's wings were no longer on fire. He might even have understood what that meant.

As it was, he only pulled them higher and higher into the sky.

As happened when one rose higher and higher in the Earth's atmosphere, the air around them quickly became thinner and thinner. Crowley probably hadn't breathed since launching himself off the ground, so he could be forgiven for not noticing immediately.

The other thing was, Heaven wasn't truly _above_ Earth, nor Hell really below it. Those were just convenient ways to refer to the realms, popularized by the term _Falling_. Really, the "falling" part of Falling was just a physical manifestation of the transformation from angel to demon, an additional gruesome side effect for those who had Earthly corporations.

So if someone wanted to reach, say, Heaven, they would need to step through the dimensional doorway, so to speak. This was simple enough for an angel or a demon, but Crowley wasn't thinking so much about taking Aziraphale back to Heaven as he was about keeping him away from Hell. And so upwards he flew. But it was easy to forget, even for demons, that Below wasn't really below anything at all.

Eventually the sky above them began to darken marginally, even though down on the ground it was broad daylight. Crowley blinked in surprise as his mind caught up, and realized that all he'd succeeded in doing was taking them higher off the ground than even most planes flew.

It was then that he noticed how very not-on-fire Aziraphale was. And how deathly still.

Crowley gasped, or tried to, but there wasn't quite enough air around, so he ended up choking until he managed to fight back his corporation's instinct to breathe once more. Instead he silently cursed his own panic as he took in what he could see of the angel.

Aziraphale's wings were mostly burnt, large areas missing feathers completely, others charred and blackened. Blood glinted along the edges of the burns, dried now by Crowley's mad flight upward. Lucky patches of unburnt feathers still shone through in a few small areas, though they were covered in a dark gray ash. For the most part, however, Aziraphale's wings were destroyed. Crowley swallowed a sob and, holding the angel tightly, took them into a dive. He had no idea whether he had succeeded in actually saving the angel from anything, and he wouldn't know until Aziraphale woke up.

If Aziraphale woke up.

Crowley shook the thought away and focused on the ground, waiting for familiar London streets to come into view. He would find the bookshop, would find _home,_ and they would deal with the aftermath there. Together.

There really was no other option.

ooooo

_Aziraphale._

Something flickered above him, out of the blackness, faint and fleeting.

_Aziraphale. _

The flickering was brighter now, and had color to it, like hazy flowers blooming against a midnight sky.

_Aziraphale!_

Aziraphale opened his eyes.

For a moment time hung suspended, and he teetered on the point separating consciousness and unconsciousness as the world expanded around him.

And then he was awake, and the pain came rushing in.

He shut his eyes immediately and curled in on himself, trying to hide from the assault that seemed to be attacking every inch of him it could find. His body burned even as he shivered, and he knew, somehow, that this pain wasn't just his corporation's; it was _his._ His very essence was in turmoil, shivering and trembling from wounds too terrible to try and understand. He felt stripped bare, skinned alive, flayed in a way he never could have even imagined experiencing. He felt… hollow.

And that scared him more than anything else, because he didn't want to consider what he would find if he followed that thought process. So he focused instead on the pain, on trying to breathe through it, on trying to find a way to minimize it.

Ever so slowly, it seemed to work.

Gradually he became aware that there was a warm weight on his head, pulling lightly at his hair, and that his hand was gripping what seemed to be another hand very tightly, and that he was lying on his side on something soft, something that smelled like…

He opened his eyes.

He was lying on the couch in the back room of the bookshop. Not a thing was out of place, and it seemed strangely peaceful compared to the turmoil he felt inside.

The motion on his hair stopped immediately, and he heard a sharp intake of breath. He didn't try to move, though, or look anywhere other than straight ahead. He wasn't sure he'd be able to and didn't want to confirm it for himself.

"Aziraphale?" someone asked softly. Another hand joined the one he was already holding, and a face leaned into view.

"Crowley," Aziraphale whispered. Something in him seemed to loosen, and warmth flooded his body, clearing away some of the iciness he felt. He gasped, and tears filled his eyes.

"Aziraphale?" Crowley slid quickly out of his chair and onto the floor, so his face was level with Aziraphale's. "What is it? Where's the pain?"

Aziraphale shook his head slightly. "No, I just – thank you. For being here."

Crowley stared at him for a moment, his expression pained. "Where else would I be?"

Aziraphale glanced away and back again in place of a shrug. It was true. If the situation were reversed, he would have felt the same way.

"How are you feeling?" Crowley asked.

"Like I've been frozen and set on fire all at once," Aziraphale admitted with a shaky breath. "And skinned alive," he added as an afterthought.

Crowley shook his head and squeezed his hand tighter. "What about your… your essence?"

Aziraphale shut his eyes and shook his head. He didn't want to think about that.

"Angel, I'm sorry-"

"Don't call me that."

"Aziraphale-"

"I don't know if I am, anymore."

He opened his eyes to find Crowley looking at something behind him, but he snapped his eyes back to Aziraphale's when he noticed him looking.

It was then that Aziraphale became aware that his wings were out. They rested stiffly on the couch behind him, hanging haphazardly over the back. A shiver ran through him as he registered the pain, icy hot and stinging. More tears sprang to his eyes before he could stop them, but it wasn't so much the pain as the thought that his wings might confirm once and for all what exactly he was now. He didn't think he could take it. Even having renounced Heaven, he still believed in Her.

"How did you know?" Aziraphale asked. He didn't want to ask the other question, not yet. He wasn't ready to know the answer.

"I saw you," Crowley said softly. "You looked like a shooting star, but colorful. And so bright. I've seen it before, I knew what it was. And I knew it had to be you."

Aziraphale frowned. There was one thing he hadn't expected, didn't understand. "The color. That wasn't hellfire."

Crowley shook his head. "No. No, I remember now – there isn't really a name for it but… well. It's only seen when… when there's a Fall."

He watched Aziraphale carefully as he said it, but Aziraphale swallowed back the panic that threatened to burst out of him and tried instead to process the information.

"Okay," was all he said, and something flickered across Crowley's face but Aziraphale was too tired to try to decipher it. "Okay," he said again.

"Get some rest, an – Aziraphale." Crowley moved his hand back to Aziraphale's head, hovering but not quite touching.

"Stay?" Aziraphale asked, his voice small. He no longer cared if he sounded like he was pleading; he didn't think he could handle it if he woke up and found Crowley gone. It would be too much in too short a time.

"Of course," Crowley replied, squeezing his hand. Aziraphale felt him start playing with his hair again and relaxed into the touch. "I'll always stay."

And though the pain was still far too intense, and the fear so present, Aziraphale sank gratefully into sleep, thinking of nothing but the weight of Crowley's hand in his.

ooooo

Crowley stayed in the same position for a long time after Aziraphale had fallen asleep once more. His fingers carded through the angel's – former angel's? – hair absently as his thoughts whirled.

What had Aziraphale done? What had been the final straw? They had survived their trials after the Not-pocalypse over six months ago now. Heaven – and Hell for that matter – had been completely radio-silent since then. Not a peep. And then… this.

Maybe it really was that simple. Maybe, because Heaven had failed to execute Aziraphale, they'd decided that this was the next best thing.

Would they have summoned him? Crowley wondered. Not as though Aziraphale would have answered any summons. Or had Aziraphale suddenly found himself tumbling through the sky without warning? Could that happen? Did an angel have to be in Heaven to begin Falling?

Crowley groaned to himself. For being one of the Fallen, he knew very little about the whole ordeal. What it felt like, sure, but he didn't really know the rules. He wondered if anyone in Hell did. Probably not. Most of them had Fallen together with Lucifer, before there had been any sort of guidelines in place for this sort of thing.

He knew the possibility had occurred to Aziraphale. Heaven, it had occurred to Crowley more times than he could count, particularly in the last six months. It was the one thing Heaven could still do to Aziraphale. But he and Crowley had thought that Crowley's display with the hellfire had been enough to scare them off.

Maybe not thought. Maybe just hoped.

Hoped, and refused to think about the alternative.

Crowley lowered his head. He should have said something about Falling after breathing hellfire at those self-righteous archangels. He hadn't wanted to give them any ideas, but he'd been kidding himself. They were angels. Of course Falling would occur to them.

Crowley tightened his grip on Aziraphale's hand. He wanted to make those angels pay. He wanted to go Up There and tear Gabriel's patronizing smirk off his hateful face. He wanted –

Aziraphale stirred. Crowley started, realizing he'd been fantasizing about taking his revenge on the angels for quite some time. Aziraphale groaned and curled into himself slightly, as if he was in pain. Crowley clenched his jaw, trying to put his anger at the archangels out of his mind for now.

"Aziraphale?" Crowley asked softly. Aziraphale squeezed his eyes shut even tighter and made a pained whimper.

"Angel, it's all right, you're okay." Crowley murmured, and then nearly cursed at himself for the slip-up. He couldn't call him "angel" anymore, not ever again. Never mind that for Crowley, it hadn't had anything to do with Aziraphale actually being an angel for at least a thousand years now. And Aziraphale was most definitely not okay, and neither was Crowley, for that matter, but saying it made it feel slightly closer to reality.

Finally, Aziraphale blinked his eyes open. He smiled slightly when he saw Crowley.

"Hello, dear," he said softly.

Crowley's lips twitched upwards into a small smile despite himself. But something of his thoughts must have shown through on his face, because Aziraphale's expression turned to concern.

"Crowley," he began, trying to push himself up slightly, wincing in the process.

"Just… lay back," Crowley muttered. Aziraphale did, but his expression didn't change.

"Please, whatever you're thinking, don't. I couldn't – I can't – " He broke off, struggling to find the words. Crowley looked away.

"Aziraphale…"

"No, don't." Crowley's eyes snapped back to him. Aziraphale's voice was sure and steady, and the intensity of his gaze meant that Crowley couldn't look away if he tried. "What will you accomplish, going Up There? You'll get yourself killed. You know you will. And I can't – I mean… where would that leave me? Our side, remember? _Our _side. Both of us. Tell me you understand."

Crowley searched his face, but he could feel the fight leaving him. Aziraphale was right. They needed each other, and sometimes that meant leaving revenge in the fantasy pile.

"Of course, I understand," Crowley said, and meant it. "I just – I couldn't save you."

"Do not blame yourself, my dear," Aziraphale implored. "It was their doing. And it's over now."

"I couldn't even heal your wings," Crowley muttered angrily. "Tried several times, too, when we first got back. No effect."

"What do you mean, no effect?" Aziraphale asked, frowning slightly.

"I mean no effect! Nothing changed! They didn't get any better and they didn't get any worse and…" Crowley trailed off. They stared at one another.

"They didn't get better-" Aziraphale began.

"-and they didn't get worse," Crowley finished. His mind was moving faster than his Bentley.

Demons could heal another demon's wings. Angels could heal another angel's wings. But a demon attempting to heal an angel's wings would only make the situation worse. And yet…

"If I – if I had – if I had Fallen," Aziraphale said nervously, "then you should have been able to heal my wings."

Crowley nodded. "And if you hadn't, then I would have only made it worse."

The question hung in the air between them. Aziraphale had a strange combination of fear and hope in his eyes, and Crowley couldn't bear it, so he let his eyes drift to Aziraphale's wings.

Out of the corner of his eye, Crowley saw Aziraphale close his eyes, as if steadying himself. And then he turned to look at his wings.

Aziraphale sucked in a sharp breath when he saw them. Large swaths of feathers were missing entirely, and only burnt skin and bone remained in those areas. The feathers that remained were all gray, covered in what Crowley had thought was ash. But perhaps…

Almost without meaning to, Crowley reached forward. He stopped when Aziraphale tensed suddenly. Crowley met his eyes.

"May I?" he asked gently.

Slowly, Aziraphale nodded.

Crowley let his fingers come to rest, ever so lightly, on a patch of feathers. He watched Aziraphale for signs of pain or discomfort, but Aziraphale was watching his hand as if it held the answers to the universe, so he took a breath and tried to sweep the ash away.

There was none.

Aziraphale's feathers weren't white. And they weren't black. They were gray.

"Gray," Aziraphale breathed. "But – how did this happen? Did you… do something, when you…"

Crowley shook his head. His thoughts from that terrifying flight seemed to all have been jumbled.

"Well what – what happened, exactly?"

Crowley looked sharply at Aziraphale. "You sure you want to know?"

Aziraphale clenched his jaw, hesitating, before nodding resolutely. "I need to know."

Crowley considered him for a moment, and then he told him. He told him about seeing the fireball in the sky, about realizing it could be no one else. He told him about his mad rush upward and chase downward, about finally grabbing onto him, about the magnetic force that seemed to pull them downward until suddenly it vanished, about his frenzied flight skyward, and finally about bringing them back to the shop. Aziraphale watched him with sorrowful eyes, and partway through the story his thumb began drawing circles on the back of Crowley's hand. The small movement steadied him, somehow.

"That must have been terrible," Aziraphale whispered, when Crowley was done. "I'm very sorry you had to go through that. I can't imagine…" he trailed off, looking away. Crowley clenched his jaw.

"You don't have to," he said finally, hoping to break Aziraphale from his thoughts. "So, any ideas?"

Aziraphale shot him a grateful glance, and Crowley could see the gears in his mind begin to turn, putting something together. He himself, however, felt lost.

"At what point… at what point did the fire… go out?" Aziraphale asked. His voice was slightly shaky, but something in Crowley's heart warmed to see how directly he was facing this.

Crowley frowned, trying to remember. "Must have been… you know, it didn't really register to me right away, then, but I think it was actually right when you stopped, you know…"

"Falling?" Aziraphale asked, and suddenly there was something like reverence in his eyes. "Crowley, I don't think I've Fallen all the way. I think you saved me from that by sheer force of will."

Crowley stared at him. Aziraphale was _smiling_, for heav- well, for _someone's _sake. This couldn't be right. "No, I don't think I could – I mean, how would I even do that?" he protested.

"You always did have a particularly powerful imagination, if I recall, my dear," Aziraphale said.

"No, but this…"

"You drove your car through _hellfire_ and it survived."

"Well, yes, but-"

"You can stop time."

"That's not really the same-"

"Crowley, I think it's time you acknowledge you really are quite powerful," Aziraphale interrupted. He said it like it was a basic fact of life.

Crowley shook his head. "No. No, that doesn't make sense. I can do miracles, like you. But this, this is…"

"A miracle," Aziraphale said softly, and squeezed his hand. "Crowley, don't you understand what this means?"

Crowley stared at him. He was putting the pieces together, but slowly. His brain seemed to be stuck on the idea that he could possibly have truly stopped Aziraphale from Falling. It was one thing to try, another thing entirely to actually succeed.

But if Aziraphale was truly neither of Heaven nor of Hell now, then… "It means you're free."

Aziraphale nodded, joy shining from his eyes. Crowley laughed suddenly, unable to stop himself. "It means you're free!"

"I am," Aziraphale smiled. "But there's one more thing, if I'm right… Crowley, dear, do you think you could open your wings?"

Crowley frowned. "What? What have my wings got to do with anything?"

"Just – please," Aziraphale said.

Crowley didn't know what Aziraphale expected to learn from seeing his wings, but he let them slide into the physical plane all the same, opening them as far as he could in the cramped space. "Happy?"

Aziraphale gasped softly. Crowley stiffened, suddenly anxious. "What?"

"Crowley, look," Aziraphale urged.

Slowly, apprehensive about what he would find, Crowley turned to look at his left wing. It was no longer black.

It was gray.

But it wasn't a plain, uniform gray. There were many different shades of gray, and the pattern was that of a gradient moving diagonally outward from the base of his wing, light to dark, repeating several times before it reached the tip. His right wing was identical.

Crowley let out a shaky breath as he turned back to Aziraphale.

"I don't – I don't understand."

"I believe," Aziraphale said slowly, "that because saving an angel from becoming a demon is quite, er, undemonic behavior, that perhaps you were… kicked out?"

Crowley snorted. "Takes quite a demon to get kicked out of Hell itself."

"Yes," Aziraphale smiled warmly at him, "it does."

"But… no, but I would have felt something," Crowley protested. It seemed too good to be true. "Wouldn't I have?"

"Well, perhaps you need to take stock," Aziraphale suggested. "How do you feel now?"

Crowley frowned at him before closing his eyes. He let the material world fall away, focusing instead on his true essence, the ethereal beating heart of him. There _was_ something different, he realized. Hell had always felt a bit like a chill in his soul, a cold, malevolent power that made him a demon rather than an angel. Now, that chill was gone. A chain had been lifted from around his neck. For the first time in six thousand years, he felt unencumbered by his demonic essence.

Slowly, he opened his eyes. Aziraphale was smiling at him knowingly.

"I feel… light" Crowley said, unable to stop a grin from spreading across his face.

"Don't you just?" Aziraphale beamed at him. "Your wings truly are beautiful, my dear."

Crowley shook his head and leaned back, glancing at his wings again. "Wonder what yours'll look like, once they heal."

Aziraphale shrugged. "We'll have to wait and see, I suppose."

"So we're both officially, er, unaffiliated now," Crowley began. A strange sort of happiness seemed to blossom inside him as he said it. "What do you think that means, exactly?"

"Well, presumably we can still do miracles," Aziraphale began. As he said it, a wine bottle and two glasses appeared on the coffee table. Crowley smiled. Aziraphale folded his wings away, wincing slightly, and Crowley helped him sit up. He was still in pain, and would be for some time, but it was the last retribution from Heaven or Hell they would have to worry about. They had broken away completely now, truly and fully.

"Can I tempt you to a drink or ten?" Aziraphale asked, a glimmer in his eyes that Crowley had seen perhaps three times before in the past six thousand years. He had a feeling he'd be seeing it a lot more often now.

"Temptation accomplished," Crowley replied with a smile. He had never felt freer.

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**I hope you enjoyed! Please review!**


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